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Monday, April 18, 2016

The New Feudalism

In the United States, “trickle down” economic
policies that support tax cuts for the rich with the aim of boosting economic
growth and jobs have led to a $2 trillion annual redistribution of wealth from
the bottom 99 percent of earners to the top 1 percent over the last 30 years,
said Nick Hanauer, a former venture capitalist and now head of Civic Ventures,
which aims to drive social change.

If the trend continues, by 2030, the top 1 percent of
Americans will earn 37 to 40 percent of the country’s income, with the bottom
50 percent getting just 6 percent, he said:

“That’s not a capitalist market
economy anymore,” he warned. “That’s a feudalist system and it scares me.”

Globally, half of the world’s wealth is now held by just 1
percent of the world’s population, according to a 2015 report by Credit Suisse,
a financial services company.